The effect of shallow convection on the diurnal cycle of the surface energy budget is investigated. Focus is on the role of the cloud shading on the establishment of the surface convective forcing. A scheme for calculating the shallow cumulus cover was implemented in the BRAMS atmospheric model. Two sets of experiments were performed: in the first experiment, the model had no interaction between shallow convection and radiation, and in the second type of experiment shallow convection interacts with radiation. Results show that the consideration of the interaction between shallow cumulus and radiation leads to more realistic simulations. This is more pronounced around the local noon and early afternoon, when the shallow cumulus activity reaches a maximum. The surface fluxes and the cumulus cover were very sensitive to the variations in the radiative forcing. Even though, from a qualitative viewpoint, there is an improvement on the quality of the simulated fluxes, it became evident a model flaw in representing these fluxes during the first hours of the diurnal cycle.
shallow convection; radiation; BRAMS
